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Bullet Damage based on RNG

Sniping the same person in the head today, at same range, I got both 93 damage and 103 damage headshots with same ammo, no crits. It appears that, in addition to crits, blaps, bloops, and headshots, there is a RNG that determines bullet damage.

The same can be observed with SMGs. I initially thought it was linked to limb shots (16 vs 22 with an MP7) but then noticed that it would randomly give different hits different values as well.

I really don't know what other way to describe the situation except that not all headshots are created equal, it seems, and with no other scenario changes, I had a 50/50 chance of killing someone with a headshot for no apparent reason at all as it was the same person over and over.

well are you sure that that person did not change their armor or did you notice if their were any assault nearby giving them the harden armor bonus?

But yeah, I thought everyone knew that range affects damage...it's more apparent with certain weapons more than others but damage does seem to drop off at long ranges...I think each weapon is different though...

Yes any shot fired from any gun damage starts to drop off at long range. Bit the odd thing is that it's really long range. Take smg don't show a dmg drop till almost 3/4 of a map same with shotguns when lmg ar and sniper rifles can crank a whole map and barely lose any damage.

I honestly haven't noticed anything going on like that on my end. Usually when i use my MP5 it's pretty on the ball for dmg. And when i get shot the DMG is pretty much the same other then the stupid mk16sv crits for over 80+ body shots

I'm almost positive this is correct, that damage does depend on distance. I can't say for certain, but I've witnessed it. (Admittedly, anecdotal evidence isn't that reliable.) I believe the distance has to be pretty big for it to matter.

Ah another discussion on the mysteries of entrance wounds, exit wounds, hydrostatic shock and other permanent cavitation along the way depending on the round and how/if it fragments. Actually, no the damage model is somewhat far simpler. For the record, there is no random number generator in the damage system.

If I were to hazard a guess on what happened based on what you guys said, the first shot was made with the target standing alone, and the second shot was made when an Assault with a Harden squad support device equipped nearby. The Harden II device strengthens nearby teammates’ armor by 10%, which is approximately the damage difference of the case you mentioned.

The short answer is that damage is deterministic. The shooter’s side of the equation is defined by the ammo type of the weapon, its weapon class, relevant attachments, whether it is a critical hit, and distance to target. On the unfortunate target’s side, damage is mitigated by its armor, armor inserts, team upgrades and impact point on the target’s body.

It is expected (and we’ve tested this) that a headshot from a specific weapon at precisely x distance on the same target will deal the exact same damage every time. If the damage differs, someone’s changed something, be it the use of special ammo or swapping armor or distance or point of impact. If those variables did not change, then we’re looking at some kind of a bug, so we’d really appreciate it if you guys could provide more details on what you tried.

For the technically inclined, here’s a little tidbit on how our damage falloff was derived:

Ammo type: Each weapon is assigned its ammo type, like 5.56x45, 7.62x52, etc. This is the core of the damage model, and it contains the ammo type’s base damage along with its damage falloff curve.

As a bullet travels ****her, it loses KE, which translates to lower damage in our model. The curves themselves were generated by abstracting the external ballistics of a hypothetical perfect projectile (i.e. 5.56x45 for some assault rifles).

Factoring in the typical mass, diameter and drag coefficient of a typical stock 5.56 bullet, we got the ballistic coefficient and calculated the resultant deceleration of the bullet at sea level over distance based on the round’s typical initial muzzle velocity.

The values were plotted out to 200 real world meters to project a round’s performance over distance, and normalized to game meters so that the round would perform similarly in game.
The net result of this exercise is varied ammo curves that allow 12 gauge buckshot to lose KE much faster than a NATO 7.62, creating performance differentiation between the ammo types. The differentiation is taken ****her by factoring in a weapon’s typical muzzle velocity and thus deriving the intricacies of engineering that make different guns perform differently with the same ammo.